"He who, sacrificing, entered into all these beings
As a wise sacrificer, our Father, who,
Striving for blessings through prayer,
Hiding his origin,
Entered this lowly world,
What and who has served him
As a resting-place and a support?"[20]
Rigveda 10: 90, gives answer to these questions. Purusha is the primal being who
". . . covered earth on every side and
Spread ten fingers' breadth beyond."
One sees that Purusha is a sort of Platonic world soul, who surrounds the world from without. Of Purusha it is said:
"Being born he overtopped the earth
Before, behind, and in all places."
The mother symbolism is plain, it seems to me, in the idea of Purusha. He represents the mother-imago and the libido of the child clinging to her. From this assumption all that follows is very easily explained:
"As sacrificial animal on the bed of straw
Was dedicated the Purusha,
Who was born on the straw,
Whom the Gods, the Blest, and the Wise,
Meeting there, sacrificed."
This verse is very remarkable; if one wishes to stretch this mythology out on the procrustean bed of logic, sore violence would have to be committed. It is an incredibly
